


On the Verge of All Things New

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: After the airbase, Anathema and Newt's second time, F/M, Free Will, Kissing, The Notpocalypse, adorkableness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: Newt and Anathema, immediately after.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25
Collections: Gen Prompt Bingo Round 19





	On the Verge of All Things New

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "canon themes." I was considering breaking with tradition for this one and writing up a meta post about themes of love and free will in _Good Omens_ canon. But I think most of what I'd have to say about that has probably been said already. And it occurred to me that the one thought I had that I _hadn't_ seen discussed elsewhere could be addressed perfectly well in fic form, anyway. Plus, it gave me a nice excuse to write Anathema/Newt, which I somehow hadn't managed to do yet.
> 
> Title is from "Two Thousand Years," by Billy Joel, which has always seemed to me to be an incredibly apt song for _Good Omens_ , even if that "Two" obviously should be a "Six" instead.

After it's all over -- or maybe it's more accurate to say, after it's all failed to be over -- Newt takes Anathema back to her cottage. It seems the only reasonable thing to do. They can't exactly keep hanging around the airbase. People will show up to ask questions, and Newt can't even answer his own questions, never mind those of people who weren't actually there.

The cottage no longer looks like a tornado's been through it, which probably ought to surprise him more than it does. Anathema doesn't appear startled at all, though, and it's her place, so he decides he doesn't need to worry about it if she doesn't.

She seems to expect him to come in, so of course he does, and then there's a weirdly familiar-feeling moment where they're standing there awkwardly, looking at each other, and he has absolutely no idea what he ought to do now.

He wants to kiss her. Is he allowed to kiss her? Is he supposed to? Back at the airbase, she called him her boyfriend, but maybe that's just the sort of thing that happens when you've helped save the world together five minutes earlier. Maybe he shouldn't get his hopes up. Probably by now she's realized just how far out of his league she is.

"So," he hears himself saying. "Um. I guess.... I should be going? Home?" He has no idea what he's going to do at home, after all this. He supposes he'll need to find a new job. And a new hobby. He can't keep hunting witches. He's decided he really _likes_ witches.

"Oh," say says. She looks disappointed. That makes something strange happen in his chest, or possibly his stomach. Something that's warm and excited and happy, because she maybe doesn't want him to go, but also sort of awful, because he never wants to see that expression on her face again. "All right."

"Unless you don't want me to," he says, very quickly, and the awful part of whatever's happening inside him instantly melts away into something pleasantly fluttery, because she smiles at him. 

"Well," she says, and her smile gets bigger, and sort of... flirtier? Newt doesn't have much experience with seeing that particular expression directed at him, but he thinks that's what it is. She reaches out and takes one of his hands in hers, and gosh, she has such smooth skin, she must use some incredible moisturizer. "I thought maybe you'd like to see what it's like on _top_ of a bed."

It takes him a second to realize what she's talking about, but when he does, it's like a flash of lighting, shooting from her hand directly into his brain. (And a little bit into his groin. Um.)

The answer is "yes," of course. He'd like to try it on top of the bed. And anywhere else she might want. On a chair, on a table, on a beautiful moonlit beach. A car, a boat, a... a hot air balloon, a...

"Yes," he says. "Oh, God, yes." But, then... _Shut up, Newt, stop it, stop thinking so hard, for once in your ridiculous life!_ "But wait," he says, because apparently he really _is_ incapable of shutting his stupid brain off, even now. "Didn't Agnes say that we only do it once? It was underlined, and everything."

"Ah," Anathema says, caressing his hand a little, which is just about the nicest thing ever. She gives him another, different smile. "I have a theory about that."

"You mean a hypothesis. You see..." He's about to explain that they're not the same thing, about to tell her all about how you can't be named after Isaac Newton and not understand the difference between the Theory of Gravity and just some random Hypothesis About Gravity, but then he suddenly remembers how, in Isaac Newton's time, there was this idea -- a hypothesis or a religious dogma or maybe just a weird, wild guess -- that the motions of the planets were due to angels pushing them around, and, oh god, he just met an angel today, didn't he, so suddenly that actually seems sort of plausible. But, no. No, he can't really believe they're all being pushed around by angels. Even if they were yesterday, they surely aren't _now_ , because from what he saw, Heaven doesn't seem to be in control of much of anything today. Which is maybe a thought that should concern him more.

Anathema is looking at him expectantly. Or possibly she's worried he's having a stroke or something, because he's gone a bit catatonic. He blinks, and swallows, and tries to focus on her face. "Never mind."

"Okay," she says, seemingly unbothered. "Do you want to hear about my hypothesis, then?"

"Yes. Please."

She's stroking his hand again. It's amazing. He's never going to get tired of it. "All right," she says. "Here's what I think. I think, in some sense, the world _did_ end."

"Oh," he says. He has no idea what he was expecting, but he's pretty sure this was not it. "Okay?"

"When Adam... did whatever he did. When he changed things. He ended one world, the world where he was the Antichrist, and he replaced it with a new one. One where he was never anything but human."

Newt feels his brow furrowing. That makes some sort of sense, actually, but... "Wait, does that mean we _didn't_ save the world? Does that mean we all died? And we're just, what? Copies?" He doesn't _feel_ like a copy, but would he? If he was a good enough copy?

"No. I don't think so," Anathema says. She looks serious and thoughtful now. It's a great look. It's very _her_. "I think of it more like... all the things that _weren't_ what Adam wanted to change just got sort of... passed on, from one world to the next. Which effectively means the world just kept existing, even though it ended. Does that make sense?"

"I think so." Weirdly, it sort of does. Or at least as much sense as anything makes, these days. He's happy to go with that. "But what does that have to do with..." _With my mighty cockalorum_ , he almost says, remembering the prophecy card, but fortunately he stops himself in time. "With, you know. Us."

She gives him a sly, flickering sort of grin, and _that_ looks pretty amazing on her, too. She has so many different kinds of smiles! He keeps thinking he's seen them, all, and he keeps being really, really happy to find out he's wrong. "Well," she says, "Agnes's prophecies are all finished now. That's how we knew the end was coming, you know. There were very few of them left still waiting to come true. And now there aren't any at all. So what I think is, the prophecies were only about the old world. The previous world."

"The one that sort of ended?" Newt says.

"Yes!" She sounds excited. "Maybe Agnes couldn't see into this new version of the world at all. But even if she could, I don't think it's relevant to what's in the book. I think those are only prophecies about the world as it was. That's why they stop where they do."

"Oh!" He's getting it now. "And we only did it once in that world, right?" It's a little amazing to him that he can just say that, just say "did it" like that and mean a thing he's actually _done_.

"Right, yes!" She squeezes his hand. "That prophecy came true, even the 'once and only once' part. But now? Now, I think the future is completely open. We are free, really, truly, completely free. What we do in this new world is entirely up to us." There's a wondering look on her face. He thinks it might be a lot like the look he had on his face earlier, with her.

"Can I kiss you?" he says. 

She doesn't answer, but instead surges forward and mashes her lips against his, and for a lovely, happy little while, he really _does_ manage not to think too much about anything. Or at least, nothing other than how it turns out everybody was totally right about how great this kissing thing is, and how nice it is to have Anathema's arms around him and her body pressed up against his.

"Anyway," she says, finally, breathlessly, as she pulls out of the kiss. "If it turns out I'm wrong about that? I say _screw_ Agnes."

He laughs. "I'd rather screw her descendant," he says, and blushes at his own cheeky boldness.

She pulls back a little, but she's laughing, too. "I think that can be arranged," she says.

She kisses him again. It doesn't get any less nice, which is... _nice_. It's very, very nice.

"I mean it," she says, her lips still hovering distractingly close to his face.

"I'd hate to think you didn't."

She lets about another little laugh, her breath sweet and warm against his cheek. "Not the kissing. I definitely mean the kissing. But I meant about Agnes. I've been thinking." Her hands wander up and down his back. He should try that on her back, too. He hopes she likes it as much as he does. "I was thinking a lot, on the drive back from the airbase. Because that guy we saw there, the guy with the red hair?"

Newt nods. That guy was pretty hard to forget. 

"It sounds crazy, but I think... Well, I think that guy was the actual Serpent of Eden."

Newt blinks. "The one with the apple?" Hadn't someone said something about apple trees, back there? It's all a bit of a blur at this point, really. 

He moves his hands over her back a little, experimentally. It seems to go pretty well. 

"Exactly," she says. "The one with the apple. And he was _on our side_. Maybe I'm overthinking things--" God, he loves her. He loves her brain, and he loves her. Maybe he shouldn't yet, maybe it's way too soon for that sort of thing, but he does. "--but do you know what I think?"

"Tell me what you think. I want to know what you think." He does, always, about everything. He tries kissing her neck, and that seems to go well, too, judging by the little sound she makes and the way she stretches out to give him better access.

"I think," she says, "that if Adam -- _either_ Adam -- has taught us anything, it's that we absolutely get to choose love over obedience. Over doing what we're told is expected of us."

He kisses her again, and this time his brain doesn't shut off. This time, his brain is full. He's thinking about computers, about how they're supposed to be nothing but machines for obeying rules, but they also helped save the world by disobeying. He's thinking about the taste of apples, and the taste of lips, and how sweet those two things might taste together. He's thinking about the future, and how maybe the two of them really might have one, all for themselves.

Anathema's hands are between their bodies, now, plucking at his shirt, heading for his trousers. "Come on, then," she says. "Let's take these fig leaves off, and go see what we can do with all this free will, huh?"

It's not perfect, what they do with it. It isn't paradise. There are awkward moments. There are minor miscommunications and some accidental pinchings and squishings, and at one point they start laughing so hard about something they have to stop for a little while until they get the mood back.

But it is, Newt believes, and Anathema seems to agree, possibly the best thing that's ever happened in the history of humanity.

No matter which beginning you count from.


End file.
